Duo deliver safety to European roads with new car technology

NXP Semiconductors has announced the rollout of its life-saving RoadLINK V2X communication solution in the new Volkswagen Golf. The recently released Golf of the 8th generation is the first volume European car model equipped with V2X, offering a major boost to the deployment of the technology on European roads and beyond. The technology can prevent accidents by having cars communicate with each other, independent of car brands and without the support of cellular infrastructure.

“Road safety forms the core of VW’s commitment to its customers. As a high volume manufacturer we aim to be a pioneer in this space,” said Dr. Johannes Neft, Head of Vehicle Body Development for the Volkswagen brand. “The introduction of V2X, together with traffic infrastructure providers and other vehicle manufacturers, is a major milestone in this direction. Volkswagen includes this technology, which doesn’t involve any user fees, as a standard feature to accelerate V2X penetration in Europe.”

“Volkswagen has taken a bold step to seize the road safety initiative through the implementation of V2X,” said Torsten Lehman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Driver Assistance and Infotainment at NXP. “After proving our technology in more than one million test days globally, we are pleased that our RoadLINK technology, developed in cooperation with Cohda Wireless, was chosen to enable new levels of safety in Europe’s most popular car model, the new Golf.”

NXP and Volkswagen have closely collaborated for high reliability and performance, as well as for standardisation of V2X communication that addresses cyber security and privacy protection.

V2X in Europe

WiFi based V2X is a mature technology that has been tested for more than ten years. Presently, 1,000km of European roads are equipped with V2X technology based on WiFi with 5,000km planned through the end of 2019. Its research and development, testing and standardisation has occurred within a strong global eco-system of suppliers and car manufacturers to ensure reliability in diverse road and traffic conditions.

WiFi therefore forms the basis of the European standard that has been chosen for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. An additional benefit is its availability independent of paid cellular services. Other developing cellular based technologies can be added complementary to WiFi-based V2X .

V2X communication is set to become a critical part of advanced driving assistance systems and the migration to autonomous cars that communicate with each other and with traffic infrastructure. The benefit of WiFi-based V2X is its robust, low latency, real time communication - regardless of any car brands.

It enables awareness and communication between cars, road infrastructure like traffic lights or street signs, and other road users such as cyclists and pedestrians.

It is a technology that is collaborative, allowing it to 'tap into' surrounding sensor data from mutually equipped cars to warn of hazards and prevent accidents.

V2X is a technology that complements other ADAS sensing technologies such as radar, LiDAR and cameras.

It helps vehicles to 'see' more than a mile ahead and around corners to provide early warning of obstacles, hazards, and road conditions.

It has the ability to 'see' through objects, delivering more information than that obtained through line of sight only.

Its sensing capabilities are unaffected by poor weather conditions.

NXP offers the only 5.9GHz V2X system solution proven in volume production today.